A U.S. Air Force 320th Special Tactics Squadron operator prepares for military free fall operations from a U.S. Air Force 1st Special Operations Squadron MC-130H Combat Talon II Feb. 14, 2018, at Chandy Range, Thailand. Throughout Cobra Gold 2018, the 1st SOS provided specialized aviation in support of airborne operations for the 320th STS and Royal Thai Air Force 3rd Special Operations Regiment. (U.S. Air Force photo by Capt. Jessica Tait)

Candidates training to be special operators evolve to the enemy that’s developing by adapting and trying to overcome it, two Air Force special-operator trainers said yesterday at the Pentagon in the Defense Department’s “Showcasing Lethality” briefing series.

“From the battlefront and the training enterprise, from our standpoint, we are the foundation of what builds our battlefront airmen, to include our combat control operators, our pararescuemen, our [tactical air control party] operators and our special operations,” said Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Gutierrez Jr., superintendent of standards and evaluations for Air Education and Training Command’s Battlefield Airmen Training Group, at Joint Base-San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.

He and Air Force Master Sgt. Thomas J. Gunnell, a tactical air control party craftsman assigned to the 26th Special Tactics Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, provide some of the most rigorous training that goes into being a battlefield airman.